First Musings

I'm musing over the history of the Southern Baptist Convention.

I am a recovering Southern Baptist - recovering from a long and harsh battle between the narrow-minded and everyone else. I wrote an interview in 1988 for "Southern Baptists Today," a newspaper organized by "moderate" Southern Baptists. It was an interview with the chair of the AAUP chapter at Southeastern Seminary. That interview put me on a "black list" with the then-new "conservative resurgence." It cost me much heart-ache and kept me from serving some churches where I might otherwise have had good ministry in music.

I survived by changing denominations and finding secular work. But many, many professors (all of whom were conservative), many pastors, and many missionaries have lost vital ministries because of the behavior of those persons in the leadership of the SBC who still call themselves "Christians," though their behavior belies that title.

What brought this to mind again here in 2007 are blogs which show amazement and concern over the resignation of a professor of Hebrews at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary who was shown the door because of her gender. I am certainly not surprized, nor should anyone who has history with the SBC dating to the middle 1980s. This behavior is not new.

Baptists are, and have historically been, a confessional group. That means that each person is responsible for the development of her/his own spiritual life, with help from the church and individual members of it, personal research, Bible study and prayer, and any other means he/she pleases. They confess their belief in Christ to each other and the world, but they abhor creeds. The "Baptist Faith and Message" (BFM) is a confessional statement; that is, it is a statement of the general beliefs of the denomination, but not a creed that all must believe. Unless, of course, you are employed by the denomination as a missionary, professor at a seminary, or appointee of the convention. For them, then, it becomes a creed. It is my personal opinion that the leadership of the SBC since the completion of their take-over in 1989 would prefer to make it a creed for all members of the denomination.


Part of the rewriting of the BFM has reflected the core beliefs of fundamentalism in American Christianity. Self-professed "conservatives" within the denomination object to the term "fundamentalist," but a brief look at similarities between SBC conservatives and fundamentalists is in order.

Man is leader. The "family" section of the BFM reflects the male as the leader of the home and the female as submissive. This carries over into non-family matters, too, as is the case where women are teaching men "doctrine." In both fundamentalism and in the SBC, man is leader. Scriptural "proof texts" are provided for everything done.

The liberals are demons, or at best heathens. It has always been the case that fundamentalists demonize the opposition. Only since the "conservative" resurgence has the leadership of the SBC demonized "liberals." Calling someone a "liberal" does not make that person a liberal. Early in the conservative resurgence, liberals became demons; they still are so.

The Bible is inerrant. Period. There is no discussion about this anymore. In the late '80s there was much discussion: some said that only the "original manuscripts" were inerrant; others said that God gave us the inerrant version, and that it was the King James Authorized Version. Soon thereafter, the leadership lost the distinctions, and now the Bible is just inerrant, period. (For a lengthy discussion of the "discrepancies" of Scripture, see Beyond Fundamentalism by James Barr.)

The Bible is what we make of it. Which Scriptures do we use and believe and which do we discard as dated? Both fundamentalists and SBC leaders have similar favorite Scriptures, while ignoring others. In probably a dozen or more times in my life I have been verbally attacked for admitting that there were parts of Scripture that I did not accept (like the requirement that women wear head-coverings in church). I asked those that attacked me if they believed the Bible and tried to follow its teachings; of course they said, "Yes." So I asked them to give me all the money they were carrying, because Luke 6:30 says, "Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back." (NIV) No one ever gave me a dime. See how much they believe the words of Jesus himself?

What about the rank-and-file Southern Baptists? Many simply follow the whims and dictates of their pastors. Others don't. The most conservative of the group have always thought homosexuals were perverts and heathens.

As a musician (and a heterosexual), I have been in professional relationships with Christian musicians who also happen to be homosexual. They most often have been devout men and women who love Christ fervently. I would never condemn them like many "loving" conservatives do. I view the hatred of homosexuals in the same way that I viewed white Christians hating black Christians: simple prejudice. Any serious study of the sexuality issues in the Bible will reveal all sorts of discrepancies in use and meaning of the words translated as "homosexual." (It will also reveal rather disturbing views of heterosexual understanding.) Fundamentalists and the SBC leadership hold similar views on homosexuality.

As a husband and father, I am well aware of womens' issues among Southern Baptists. The WMU was a force of strength, a movement of Spirit, and a force of missionary zeal in Southern Baptist churches in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. It has lost much of it's passion because of the decidedly non-Christlike actions of the SBC leadership since 1989. In todays SBC, Lottie Moon would not be appointed a missionary. (For those of you who do not know, Southern Baptists have a Christmas missions offering named for Miss Moon, an early missionary to China.) Fundamentalists and the SBC leadership hold similar views on women.


In my musings here, I am wondering what really separates the SBC leadership from the fundamentalists. Millenialism? No... Dualism? No... Messianism? No...

Nothing comes to mind.